These Small Hours
by Jazz7
Summary: AU What if Kaze hadn't died? What if it had been Lisa that had sacrificed her life? How does one move on from such a thing, the sacrifice of three beautiful woman—each with their own way of loving the enigma that is Kaze? And, how to forget the past?


**Author's Notes: **It's almost the end of summer (unless you live in the Southwest, then it IS the end of summer), and I feel guilty about not updating one of my series. I really do. Mostly I've spend my last break before college with video games and anime, which is why you're getting this fan fiction. :D

Before we start, I'm going to go all "save the children" on you guys and say this:  
Please, help FFU fan fiction. Your donation of good, readable, non FF7 (FFU and FF7 are completely different, don't put FF7 in the FFU fan fiction category unless it's a crossover) fan fiction will save at least 3 lives. Your kind donation will prevent fan fiction readers from hanging themselves from the horridness of bad FFU fan fiction. Won't you help us? Help us make a better world?  
(Yu and Ai stand in the background, looking homeless, cold, and miserable): Won't you please help us?  
(Lisa smiles): Your kind donation can save us from a horrible fate. Such as: Mary Sues, character bashing, and mindless plots that lead to no where that elementary school children wouldn't even make.

(The crew of the Comodeen stand in the background, waving for attention): Please help us!

(Kaze stands up from the shadows): If you don't... (Starts to charge up the Magun)

Well... (nervous laughter) You won't die, but I guess you should just donate then. Oh, and Kumo has a message too.

(Kumo stands up and glares): If you don't read this... (Takes out a bottle of mist)

Don't harass the readers! Never mind people, you get the message. :)

Anyway, sorry for the long Author's Note, but I wanted a little comedy before tragedy.

* * *

These Small Hours

FFU Oneshot

Summary: (AU)What if Kaze hadn't died? What if it had been Lisa that had sacrificed her life? How does one move on from such a thing, the sacrifice of three beautiful woman—each with their own way of loving the enigma that is Kaze? And more importantly, in the aftermath of it all, how to keep from being consumed by memories and move on?

She turned to him and placed a hand on his arm, over the cold gold metal. He couldn't see her eyes in the darkness, nor could he comprehend what thoughts were going through her head as she stepped in from of him and tossed her head back at the roar of Chaos in front of them.

He thought about shaking her off, shouting that now wasn't the time to be a peacemaker, but her next words stunned him into silence.

"Use my Soil."  
The world seemed to narrow and expand suddenly, as if a balloon had popped—letting all the air out of his lungs.  
Another roar, Ai and Yu were shouting something. Or was he shouting something?  
Kaze didn't have a clue. He still didn't.  
Nor did he understand her smile as she stepped back, away from him, and toward the cliff that separated them from the barely contained Chaos. Her left hand moved from around her side, opening up a gaping wound to his vision.

_'When has she gotten injured? During the attack on Jane?'_, But these thoughts didn't matter as the world narrowed again and his ears could now only hear the steady drip drop of her blood hitting the ground, splattering against his boots.

"Use my Soil." She repeated again, and smiled. The smile he couldn't understand, nor could he understand her happiness. It was a true smile, beautiful in its fragility.

His thoughts lingered on the day that he had taught her to smile...

And then she was gone. Over the edge and into the bright light that pronounce the beginning of Soil.

How had she know how to do it? Who had taught her?

All these questions were drowned out by the sudden weight added to his gun and the roar of Chaos and screaming as the world expanded and time caught up with him.

He didn't think. Kaze lifted up the Magun and, without blinking, put his finger over the trigger.

Memories hovered at the edge of his vision as his grip became tighter, the trigger pulled back and—

Chaos and everything else was gone.

* * *

"Kaze, are you alright?" Lisa asked, suddenly besides him.

Kaze looked up at her, he must have been drowsing.

She stood by him, close at his side, looking out at the many tropical fish in the ocean of the Inner World.

From his vintage point, sitting on the floor, he could just catch a glimpse of a purple and yellow fin swimming out of sight.

As if he had asked, Lisa suddenly said, "The children are alright, they're sleeping in the cabins down below with Chobi."  
Kaze just nodded his head and looked away. He could feel Lisa's eyes lingering on his profile, but he wouldn't look up to meet her eyes. Not now. Maybe it would be best if he never met her eyes at all.  
Not that he didn't think about it, but now...

Lisa shocked him out his thoughts by saying aloud, "I wonder where the ocean ends. Did your home world have an ocean?"  
Kaze closed his eyes. The image of the sky and the earth from a hot air balloon filled his mind.

Seeing a momentary glimpse of the torment on his face, Lisa changed the subject. "In Russia, the waters were cold. But in China..." Lisa shrugged and stepped away from the window, leaning against it. "It doesn't matter now."  
She smiled, and Kaze wondered if it was China or Russia that had taught her to smile with such deceit.

They lapsed into silence for a moment, the only sounds the churn of the engine and the small sounds of any ship: sleeping passengers, arguing cooks, and the small laughs and sighs of human life. The consonance seemed to reach them at a distance in the section they were in. It was almost like being lost to the world.

"Kaze."

Lisa's voice was suddenly close. Somehow she had moved to stand in front of him. Her eyes glittered in the semi-darkness.

"If something should happen to me, please take care of the children."  
She smiled, and Kaze was at a lost for words. The emotions flickering across her face were hard to read, yet painful. As if he had caught a glimpse of the true Lisa, the one she hid behind a smile.

"The children depend on you more than me._ I_ depend on you."  
As if this omission was shameful, or too revealing, Lisa looked away and shrugged again to make light of it.

"You're strong. Ai and Yu need someone, they're just children. They look up to you. Even Ai, though she would never admit it with that rash tongue of hers, and Yu, shy as he is, needs a man he can look up to."

Kaze was silent for a moment before protesting. "I can't. I chase after..."  
"White Cloud, " Lisa finished for him. "I know, Kaze. But still... If something should happen to me, please take care of them. At least until they find their parents."

She looked back at him then, her eyes glittering in the dark like tarnished gold. Then she was walked away quickly and left him.

She had stated her demands as a warrior. He would give her that. She had not cried or begged him. Besides the false smile she had been honest with him. And that honesty touched him.

Kaze looked up at the window she had vacated, catching another view of mysterious fins.

"There was an ocean in my world."

It was the first time he had ever answered one of her questions.

* * *

The subway bounced along the tracks and an announcer reported, yet again, the anniversary of the appearance of the Pillar of Darkness.

Kaze sat idly in a window seat, not staring at anything in particular. Peace didn't suit him well. Why he had stayed in this world he still didn't know. Kumo and the the Comodeen had left, but there was always a way back. He was still in Japan, but he had two plane tickets to Russia and China. Including the return flights, excluding the crossover flights, that meant he would be on an airplane at least four times and spending hours, if not days, in the air.  
The crowd on the subway was slight: a few school girls on their way to early morning volleyball practice from the looks of their bags, businessmen (Ironically, businessmen like him. How the hell Joe and Marie had convinced him to go into business he would never know. Or understand, since they and the people working for the Hayakawa's alternative energy company did most of the work. It was their business, he was just the silent mascot.), and a single woman holding on to the hand of a small boy.

The boy looked at him, his scraggly brown hair going every which way. Judging from the bags under his mother's eyes, he gave her hell.

Kaze returned the boy's stare. The kid smiled and looked up at his mom to see if she saw what he saw, which was a tall thin man, with ridiculously long auburn hair and facial tattoos, in tattered jeans, a leather jacket, and a pair of scuffed boots that never stayed clean. The rest of his luggage was half way to Russia by now. Kaze was going to see Lisa's father.

Why he had decided to take more than half a year's sick leave, vacation time, and ironically, maternity leave (Joe believed that men should receive as many rights as women—including vacation time much to the chagrin of his wife) for this vacation. Since he had put away the Magun a year ago Kaze was no longer needed in this world. The "God of Destruction" was no more.  
Chaos was gone. Kumo, and their never ending battle, was gone. The Comodeen and the Inner World was gone forever.  
Kaze leaned forward and started a staring contest with the boy. He lost.

* * *

"_You're in my eyes, Kaze."_

Kaze was still thinking about the child on the train when an announcement was called over the intercom. In the past, he wouldn't have lost that easily. But, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs and simultaneously declining a flight attendant's offer of an extra pillow, the past was gone.

How long had he fought in the Inner World? How long since he had summoned the final creature to destroy chaos.  
How many battles, how many times had he fought Chaos?

The answer came easily to him. _Three_ times. Three times people had sacrificed themselves to kill Chaos and three times he should have died. On the third time, lucky number three, he had returned back to the world of Ai and Yu and the world that had birthed Lisa because he could find no where else to go.

The Comodeen did not need him. Though, if he had stayed, he probably still would have ended up in the same job he has now.  
All that wandering and still he was homeless. The small apartment he had was company owned. The clothes on his back had been put there thanks to the kind donation of theHayakawa family. Kaze didn't delude himself with pretending he was a part of them, he belonged to no one. His job was to support the use of the new energy source that Joe and Mary had discovered during their travels and to nod, sign off, and be present for meetings which he didn't understand. Owning 1/4th of the company didn't make him any wiser to the the perplexities of science.  
So he drifted. Walked here, went there, traveled to that country and went to that event or that mountain and he tried not to think about what he would do when he got there other than turn around and go back the way he had came.  
But he could always keep walking. There was always that.

With a beeping noise, a mini-television screen appeared in front of him with a video on safety and emergency procedures. Kaze blocked it out and focused on the scenery outside the window, gazing at his reflection.

"_You're always in my eyes, forever, Kaze."_

He closed his eyes and blocked out the memory, thinking, _"Lou, what was it all for?"_

For once, he didn't have an answer.

* * *

Russia was cold, this time of year, but thankfully he hadn't forgotten his training and so he didn't feel the snow pile up on his shoulders or how cold his body had become until he was half way to Tsar Pacifist, Lisa's father, and the home she had lived in for half of her childhood.

The scenery was gray, an endless world of white. Lisa had lived so far out in the country that nothing else existed near them except a small, abandoned, farm. That too seemed to be made out of snow. It was almost as if Kaze was still in the Inner World, traveling across a plane of ice one more.

The cab stopped in front of a discreet red bricked mansion, and as Kaze reached into one of his pockets to pay the driver, his hand brought him not the change he needed but his memento of Lisa. The only evidence that she had ever existed was a single red ribbon.

He had packed it unconsciously. After all this time it was still red and just as stiff as it had been when he had first found it, as if Lisa had just left it behind.

Shaking loose of the memory, and glaring at the cab driver for being impatient, Kaze paid the man and headed up the slope toward the mansion. Half way there he was met by a servant who quickly ushered him into the main hall.

"I would have met you at the airport, _Kuroki Kaze_, if you had left a contact number or let my people know when you would be arriving. Or should I address you as Omega's poster boy?"  
The cold voice of Tsar Pacifist drifted down the elaborate staircase to greet him before the man did. Kaze ignored the barb about his occupation (at Ai's suggestion, they had named the company Omega in homage to both Clear and the misguided force in the Inner World) and studied the man before him.

He had been handsome once, and was about Kaze's height but of a stockier build and clearly Russian. And while Kaze was probably older, Tsar Pacifist looked all his 50+ years of age while Kaze didn't have a gray hair in sight.  
He looked nothing like Lisa, and it startled him. Kaze could not imagine this man as her father. Yet, when Tsar shook Kaze's hand and introduced himself as Nicholas, the way he smiled with his mouth with out it reaching his eyes and the intensity of his gaze reminded him of Lisa.

Both men measured the worth of the other. Nicholas was silent for a moment, then gestured for Kaze to follow him into a parlor left off the main staircase.

When they were finally alone, the man wasted no time in interrogating him. "Why have you come here? When I received an offer from Omega for a merger and was told that the living proof of life beyond the Outer World was coming to my door step, I knew it wasn't about business that you wanted to meet with me"

Kaze waited until Nicholas sat down and offered him a seat before speaking. Remaining standing, Kaze walked over to the window and looked out upon a colorless world as Nicholas lighted a cigar.

"You're right, it isn't about business."

His voice sounded raspy even to him. Kaze wondered if he would ever speak so many words again after this conversation.

Nevertheless, he continued. "Omega is interested in a sponsor for their latest venture, but I've come here on my own time."

"So you lied to me." Nicholas glared at him, his words soft in the cold anger of a strategist that hates for someone to ruin his plans. His glare, like sapphires glittering in the dark, reminded him of Lisa the night before she had died.

Kaze closed his eyes against the memory. "In a way."  
"A lie is a lie. Don't they teach that in your world?"  
Ignoring the evident ire and scorn in the other man's words, Kaze swallowed his anger and folded his arms across his chest. In another time, he would have blown Nicholas' head off for even glaring at him. But those times were gone.

"They taught me in _my_ world that fathers were to look after the welfare of their daughters."

It was petty, but Kaze still enjoyed the look on Nicholas' face as he blanched under the mention of Lisa.

"You know my daughter? Where is she, and what is this? If you've come to ask for her hand you're wasting your time. First Dolk and now you. My what strange men she attracts, my Lisa."

Kaze was momentarily thrown off guard by his words, then got to the point. "Lisa's dead."

It took a full minute for the news to sink in, during which Nicholas lit another cigar and stared at Kaze passively, as if weighing his words against his own version of the truth.

Kaze thought he would throw him out, demand proof of his claim, maybe even hit him. But instead there was no tears, no outrage or demand for the truth. With the same calm he had shown before Nicholas stood up and called for a maid to show him to his room.

* * *

"_...My what strange men she attracts, my Lisa."_

Kaze dismissed the maid as soon as he got the chance, he needed to be alone to evaluate the situation.  
Lisa's father, who even though there was some mannerisms shared between them Kaze was starting to doubt if he was even related to Lisa, seemed to either be in shook of to have completely ignored what he said.

No, not likely. He heard. And in some way maybe he even _knew_ what he was going to say before he even said it.

And because of that he despised the man.

His own daughter was dead, and he seemed to feel more for Kaze telling him there was no merger than Kaze telling him his own daughter, his only daughter and child, was dead.

And there was something about what he said, something about the way Nicholas had said Lisa's name and the possessiveness added to it that bothered him. As if she were a wayward dog wandering from its master.

Kaze didn't mind the mistake Pacifist had made thinking he was Lisa's lover, but he did mind the way Pacifist and his whole estate seemed to have covered up—no destroyed—every trace of the woman he had traveled with.

The hallways were silent and window less and he let his instincts guide him to his room. He didn't need a map to know where the Magun rested.

As Kaze pondered over how he had managed to pull enough strings to get it pass the airport metal detectors, he came across an open door.  
_"Kaze."_

Kaze turned around quickly, his eyes alert and searching the gloom for who had said his name.

He would know that voice anywhere. It sounded like Lisa.

But Lisa, Lisa of the deceptive smile and martial arts, was gone.

Instead, he turned back toward the room that was calling to him.

It was a girls room in every sense of the word. Orange wallpaper and a view of the distant mountains engulfed the room in the feeling of a friendly, yet distant, calm. It was like stepping into the past and meeting her all over again. She had been cordial and distant at the same time, just like her room reflected.

There were no pictures on the walls. No boy bands or cartoon characters or movie posters. No personal photographs. Just a single window, lace curtains, and a vanity mirror. Her bed was small. A child's bed. It too in shades of orange.

_'It must have been her favorite color,' _Kaze thought as he looked around and picked up the few possessions she had: a few dolls that looked to be untouched since the day they had been bought, a few small glass trinkets, a hair brush and comb, everything seemed to be arranged neatly. It was evident from the dust that no one had entered here in a long time. She must have been a neat child.

The bookshelves contained a few small volumes of classic novels in both Chinese, Russian, and English. Romances clashed against mystery novels, and mystery clashed against scientific tomes and philosophy. There was an ancient volume of _Alice and Wonderland_ on the desk opened up to an illustration of Alice and the Cheshire Cat.

Kaze read a few lines, then shook his head. The fairy tales and romances he could understand, but the rest was an enigma. She had always seemed ditsy to him, but right here under the book was a series on geometry and the cryptic ever repeating number pi.

Kaze sat down on the small bed and stepped on a stuffed animal poking half way out from under it. He picked it up. It was a small bear with tattered fur, an ill mended eye that was falling out of it's socket, and a dogeared ear.

Kaze stared at it, memorizing every detail. Out of everything in this cold house only this held any love.  
He was reminded yet again of their last evening together before Chaos had destroyed Jane and, ultimately, her. The emotions on her face that he hadn't understood were clear now. Loneliness, and hope.

It was too late to mutter an apology.

Under the bed he found more personal mementos. A few photographs of Lisa in junior high with two younger girls smiling, one of her mother and her on New Year's, and one graduation photo of Lisa graduating from high school. Her diploma was in her hand as she smiled politely at the camera, pleased with herself on her accomplishments.  
There were no photos of her father. Only a key chain that was the second half in a set with the inscription "From L to D".

Kaze left the room, closing the door behind him.

* * *

Strangely, it was not Lisa who he dreamed about that night. It was Aura.

They were back in Windaria. He was a teenager and Aura was playing in the knee length grass under the stars, her pigtails going every which way and her knees dirty and skinned. Even back then, she had been a tomboy.

Kaze looked up at the stars while Aura spun around and around, playing with the wind.

This was long before he had received the Magun, long before his father had died and gave him his birthright, forcing him to become a man. Long before Windaria and Aura were destroyed.

"Brother, brother look!"

Kaze broke away from the stars and looked for Aura. She was no where to be found.

"Aura?"  
"Brother, this way. This way, brother!"

Kaze could hear her voice, but he couldn't see her.

He stood up, panic rising in his throat and turning his stomach. "Aura!?"

"Brother... Over here!"  
No matter where he turned, no matter where he looked, or how far he ran, he couldn't reach her.

It was a familiar dream. One he had had over and over again after his first battle with Chaos and continued to have to this day. Aura would always call out for him, and he would always look for her.  
Sometimes he would be younger than he was now in the dream, or sometimes he would be older. Sometimes he would be able to catch glimpses of her out of the corner of his eye, a pigtail here or a pigtail there or the colors of her shirt. Other times he couldn't see or hear her, but would search for her with a blind panic that made him think of drowning upon waking.

"Aura!"

Kaze stopped in the middle of the endless field and turned around in circles, searching the horizon like his sister had spun only moments before.  
This was when the dream changed. He was himself. The self that no longer wore the mantle of a warrior or the clothing of vagabond, but the well tailored suit of a businessman.

"Aura!"

Over and over again. The same feelings of despair, of loss, of panic and hope. As if by calling her name he could summon her as easily as he had summoned Shiva or Atomos a lifetime ago. As if by calling her name he could make her come back from the dead.

"Aura!"  
But it wouldn't change anything. No matter how much he longed for her, no matter how many times he called her name or summoned her in memories of dreams, nothing would change.

"Kaze."  
He closed his eyes. Even without seeing he could recognize that voice. Even with out turning to see, he knew her smile and color of her hair and the shape of her lips.

"Lisa."

And that was when he woke up to darkness, forgetting the last part of his dream entirely.

* * *

The journey to China was uneventful. He had left the Pacifist mansion without doing any of the things he had wanted to do or saying any of the things he had wanted to say. Which was burying Lisa and her memory.

"I wish you luck on your journey back to Japan. Goodbye, Kuroki Kaze, let us not meet again."  
Kaze stared impassively at the man that had shared more than half of Lisa's life. The man, which in some ways, was responsible for Lisa's fate and who she had based her measure of happiness on.

Kaze looked again upon the similarities between them. Height, an absence of love, and a recklessness with her feelings that left a bitter taste in his mouth.  
It was like looking upon a mirror. A foreign and expensively dressed version of himself. And without even asking or being told he knew there had been no love in this house or between him and Lisa's mother.

Once again her smile flashed before his eyes. The emotions hidden behind her face under a thin layer of glass when she had gazed at him that final night.

Kaze did not shake Nicholas' hand when it was offered to him. Nor did he give her Lisa's remains.

* * *

The train ride to the airport, and from the airport after the plane had landed in a remote area of the Chinese countryside, was uneventful as well. Kaze spent most of the trip staring listlessly out the window thinking and then forgetting clever things to say. Such as, "I regret to inform you", and "She died well" and, the kicker of them all, "There was nothing I could do". Meaningless words that he had picked up somewhere along with his meaningless existence.

The old Kaze would have despised what he had become. Criticized him, beat him, and eventually would have blown his brains out for the uselessness of his existence.

The addition of a scarf, covering the bottom half of his face, and sunglasses did not make him feel any more like a man.

He tossed the items as soon as he could and studied himself.  
Even with the tattoos, he still looked soft. Even his skin had lightened from staying inside instead of traveling more often. His hair was still long and he still had his wiry frame, but it all looked like a sham. A middle aged man trying to be young again.

For the first time in ages, Kaze seriously thought about what he had accomplished.

At the next train stop he bought a pair of scissors and cut his hair.

* * *

Studying himself had only succeeded in reminding him of everything he had lost along with his identity. What would Aura or Lou think of him now? Lou who had proclaimed with a child's seriousness that she trusted him, loved him.

Kaze shook his head, his now short hair bouncing along his scalp, free of the ponytail which he had worn for decades. The back of his neck was lighter than the unexposed skin of his chest.

He had misunderstood Lou too. It wasn't with the seriousness of a child that she had loved him, but the passion of an adult. Like him, she too had had her clock frozen by the cruelty of the world. She had appeared young, but underneath her cute persistence had been loneliness and pain, and the recognition of a similar soul.

Had he loved Lou? Yes, as he had loved Aura. And he had loved Aura without restraint. But the man that Lou had met was completely different from the man that had cried over his sister's death.

_'Boy, really,'_ Kaze thought as he adjusted the collar on his turtleneck, looking at the reflection of his eyes in the window glass. He had grown somehow. His eyes had lost the luster of youth. The light of a man with dreams, goals, and determination as well as a foolhardy arrogance. He had thought he could change the world, that everything was at his fingertips, that nothing was out of his reach because he had a big shiny gun and a cup full of strength.

Kaze glanced up again at his mirrored eyes, he was watching himself smile.

* * *

The village where Lisa had learned Kigen Arts was a sparse place made up of few modern buildings and patched huts. Its isolation the reason for it's dated design.  
Most of the inhabitants were the elderly and woman, and Kaze looked out of place with his few possessions and his foreign features.  
A little girl came up to him, and it was like gazing through a looking glass at the Lisa of more than twelve years ago.

The ribbon was different, a dirty green instead of a fiery red, and so were the features and the hesitant smile, but her dress and the way the little girl wore her hair was the same.

She spoke Chinese, first whispering it quickly at him, and then speaking slowly when she saw that Kaze didn't understand what she was saying. When he still didn't understand, the little girl took his hand and dragged him into a nearby shack.

Kaze cursed, he had planned everything for this journey just to forget to pack a guidebook on the Chinese language or at least attempt to remember a few phrases beyond "bathroom", and "thank you".

Kaze was lead to an ancient looking woman who stared through him, as if she could read his soul.

Before Kaze could open his mouth, the old woman, the head of the village and the ancient master of Kigen, took the words out of his mouth and in perfect Japanese said: "She's dead. Lisa. And with her all our hope."

The elder wouldn't speak again until Kaze had sat down and was offered some tea.

"I don't understand."

The elder closed her eyes and leaned forward on her cane. "How did I know that Lisa was already dead? Or how did I know that you, a warrior, Kuroki Kaze, would come to sit before me?"

Kaze frowned and sipped at his tea. A strong black tea with a surprisingly mellow flavor as it cooled. He said nothing, just stared out over the woman's shoulder at the ocean beyond the village.

"You are the God of Destruction. Are you not?"  
Kaze nodded. "Not any more."  
"I see... Yes, I see now why she choose to live with you."  
Kaze repeated his earlier statement. "I don't understand."  
The ancient elder leaned forward and poked at his chest with one bony finger, right over his heart. Then she sat back and sighed, her face suddenly looking even more exhausted and old.  
"With her dies the Kigen Arts and this village. They, my people," The elder swept her cane at the space between them, indicating the village. "They will leave. Leave me and the old ways behind in favor for the modern world. Even my most trusted, most faithful, disciples have hesitation in their heart. Do you know of what I speak?"

Kaze nodded in agreement once more. He knew. Kaze thought back to the moment he had realized his own mortality on the train. "Yes."

"Then you understand that I will die soon, and with my death my world and my culture."  
The destruction of a civilization in one fell swoop. Only without Chaos this time.

"These new girls, they think only of their _makeup_ and _movies_ and _clothes_," the Kigen master spat. "And if not that they wish for it more than they wish for the guidance of the spirits. Only Lisa kept true to the arts. Trained earnestly and without straying from the path of the Kigen Arts. When she left this village, I believed she would return to train a new generation and take my place. As her mother would have if she had not died so long ago." The old woman shook her head and struck her staff against the ground in grief. "She surpassed us all. Me, her mother, and even the ancestors. That was the strength of her soul."

Kaze thought back to the day Lisa had given up that soul to become Soil. The strength behind her smile and the power behind her resolve. She had not wavered in her decision.

The Lisa he had never know and the Lisa he knew now, both of these images came together in his mind and Kaze stood up, realizing the end of his journey.  
"She died well. She died as a warrior." They were not meaningless words.

The ancient Kigen master nodded and dismissed him with a wave of her cane. "Go, wind warrior, and may the spirits be with you."

* * *

Kaze was not surprised when he was lead next to the dwelling Lisa and her mother had shared.

The door was falling off its hinges and the few pieces of furniture left were broken. There was nothing left of Lisa here, only what time and the previous occupants had left behind.

Still, he lingered. Pausing to pass his fingers over a table top and look out at the sea, Kaze thought about Lisa's life.  
Years ago, on this land, he had destroyed part of her life. He knew this instinctively. She would have been a child when he had fought Chaos and when the Pillar of Darkness had appeared. It was due to those events that her life had ran its course. Leading her from her father, to Ai and Yu, and to himself.

Her murderer. It was without malice Kaze thought this, but with a sense of pride.

It was not her father or the nameless "D" or the faceless "Dolk", but him who had held her life in his hands. It was he who had seen her true self, and it was he who she had entrusted her soul to.

Kaze smiled.

* * *

There was nothing else to see in China. Kaze had went over the few fragments left in the house of Lisa's childhood: a door frame that had measured Lisa's growth, a few shards of old pottery, and watermarks on the floor from water buckets.

Then he had left and walked through the back door to a tiny garden where only a single orchid grew among the weeds.

There was nothing left of Lisa here. Maybe there had been nothing of her in Russia either. He had been chasing ghosts.

The last night, Kaze dreamed of the field again. But he did not call out for Aura. It was not Lisa that he felt, or Aura, but the presence of Lou. He did not turn to look at her, but he could feel her warmth as she leaned against his now Magun free arm. Fireflies danced in the light of the moon, and for once he was not alone anymore.

* * *

"Kaze! Welcome back!"

It was Yu who greeted him first when he returned. Yu ran toward him and smiled. He didn't seem surprised over the change in his appearance.

"You cut your hair."  
Kaze nodded. "And you grew yours."  
Yu smiled. It was the smile of a young man, and the light of youth shined in his eyes. It was without regret that Kaze recognized a little of himself in Yu now. As if the Kaze of the past had been transferred onto a new, more worthy, body.

Kaze returned Yu's smile. Yu stepped back in astonishment.

"Hey, Yu, stop chatting with that old man and help me find Kaze. Knowing him he probably got lost getting off the airplane."

Ai ran up to the two of them, clueless and energetic as always. Kaze stared at her blossoming body. Ai was now a woman.

Ai returned his stare with suspicion before her eyes widened. "Kaze?"

Kaze nodded. "I have returned."

* * *

The Hayakawa's welcomed him back with dinner and offered him a guest room so he could spend the night with them and tell them about his travels.

There was little to say, and Kaze ended up mentioning only a few details. Mostly he told them about the tourist traps he had avoided, little known areas of interest and restaurants, and commenting on the weather difference between Japan and Russia.

He did not tell them the true reason for his vacation.

Ai, bored, demanded to know why Kaze hadn't brought back any souvenirs.

The dinner party was short lived, as Kaze suddenly found himself feeling something he had never felt before: exhaustion.

He fell into a dreamless sleep in the guest room listening to Yu and Ai argue over Ai's lack of manners, her new boyfriend, and over what to watch on tv.

Kaze's last thoughts before he fell into a, thankfully, dreamless sleep were whether or not the gray hair he had found this morning would take over the rest of his head.

* * *

The next morning, Kaze headed out before breakfast to the harbor. His hands in his pockets, he fingered the ribbon that he had carried with him for years and hardened his heart against memories.

There was no doubt in his mind that he had to put the past behind him. He was no longer Black Wind Kaze, the God of Destruction who had defeated Chaos. Nor was he the man who had apathetically swam through life without a care.

In these small hours before dawn, he had changed.  
There were doubts, plenty of them.  
Could he go on in the world?  
Could he really put the past behind him?  
Could he survive without his powers or the Magun?

But Kaze turned the corner and smelled the sea. Salty, yet sweet. He took the ribbon from his pocket and stared at the cloth in the palm of his hand. The ribbon's bright color created a warm contrast against his tan, weathered hands.

He looked up to see the lighthouse. A few more steps brought him closer to the sea and into the shadow of the white structure.

Kaze looked up again at the call of sea gulls.

"_Is there an ocean in your world?"_

Kaze closed his eyes and smiled wistfully. "Yes, there is an ocean."  
He let the ribbon go.

(These Small Hours—End 8/8/08 to 8/10/08)

* * *

**Final Author's Notes:** I hope you felt all the sadness, angst, hope and redemption that I wanted to put into this fan fiction. It has always been my policy to put story over character. Whether or not I keep the characters in my fan fiction in character is irrelevant if the readers, and most of all, myself can live with and enjoy the end result. A

I really do think that if, and since I forgot the disclaimer (by the way, I don't own FFU), I owned Final Fantasy Unlimited this would be how I would have ended the series. Maybe not with Lisa's death (I know it's impossible, but I am a little bit of a Lisa/Kaze fan, which you can see in small doses in this fan fiction), but in someway similar to this. The ending, to me, of "These Small Hours" was powerful because of the image behind it and the theme. You have to move on. You can't stay static and in the past. This is true for all things and not just Kuroki Kaze. Only through accepting his past and the fact that he had to put his demons and his old persona aside in order to live could Kaze continue to exist. Even if it means the end to his adventures and the end to his immortality.

I wanted a sense of growth along with an alternative to the anime's ending, which left much to the imagination.  
In case you, dear reader, were confused on some parts (such as who "Dolk" was or who Lisa's father is for that matter, then please read Ai no Kareshi's excellent translation of the continuation—yes, that's right, continuation—of FFU; which includes FFU: Bonds of Two, Unlimited Before, Unlimited After, After Spiral, and Unlimited After 2. Only Bonds of Two was not translated (even though it contains a cute picture of Lisa and Kaze together). If you want to reads these translations, either do a Google search or look up thecomodeen on . (Thank you both thecomodeen and Ai no Kareshi, by the way. Can't leave with out crediting them, especially for Mr. Pacifist's title.)

There are several things I had planned out in the rough draft that I did not include. Originally, Kaze's memory of Lisa was going to start from the episode 21, when in the end Lisa had held out her hand to Kaze and smiled at him, in order to help him stand up so they could return to Jane. (also at the end one of the silly "cactus''s" puts his hands over his cheeks at such a display of emotion and blushes)

I had also wanted to include in the first dream sequence Kaze getting the chance to talk to Lisa again. And I was going to put that part in the slot where Kaze's dream with Lou is now. But since Lou is greatly ignored by FFU fans (or at least in FFU fan fiction) I decided to give her some love. But now I feel like I neglected Aura. Oh well.

Also, the ending was different in my original version. Originally, I had wanted Ai and Yu to back up Kaze and be a source of strength. It was going to be Yu, not Kaze himself, who forces him to throw away Lisa's ribbon while Ai puts her hand on Kaze's shoulder in a gesture of comfort. But that would have drawn away from the whole fan fiction's second point: that you must overcome your own demons, by _yourself_. If Yu and Ai had helped him, Kaze would have never learned anything and it would have also been less dramatic.

Also, the geography of Kaze's world in this fan fiction might be off from the original. But for the sake of fan fiction, hopefully I'm right and hopefully it's not too much of a problem. :P

And, because this will bother me if I don't mention it. I mentioned Kaze twice when he is mulling over his titles. Kaze, as you may or not know, means wind. So technically writing "Black Wind Kaze" is like saying wind twice. But since this is in English, and that is one of his titles along with the God of Destruction, I'm leaving it the way it is.

**If you did not like this fan fiction, I am very sorry. I hope Kaze being OC is not too much of a problem, but please don't send a rude review based on that. And please let me know if I spelled anything wrong (despite Lisa's dad's name, since I made up the Nicholas part).**

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. See you around. (—whistles and salutes--—)


End file.
